Buttoned Side Flared Jeans in Blue

I've got a new pair of flared jeans - these are for myself! They are part of the Make Nine pledge for 2025, piece of fabric N 3 - blue denim. I bought the denim a couple of years ago with an idea to make a pair of jeans for Gaby, but she turned my suggestion down, as she did not like the color of the fabric.

To be frank, with the years I grew cold to that color too. Still, sky blue jeans can be quite wearable in the summer, with light colored T-shirts, so I hope I'll get some decent wear out of them.

The concrete inspiration for the jeans came from a Netflix Spanish mini tv series - A Perfect Story, where the two main characters walked through Athens. I loved experiencing again the Acropolis through their eyes, but being a seamstress, I could not help but analyze their clothing and I fell in love with the jeans the girl wore. I took a few snapshots, googled flared jeans with buttons on the side and soon designed the mods to my Burda 7050 pattern, to turn it into an imitation of the inspiration garment. Hashtag Make-That-Look :)

Pattern: Flared Jeans Burda 7050

Size: 34, shortened - 6 cm, no hem allowances

Fabric: cotton denim

Time to make: 10 days

Apart from the buttoned openings of the legs, the jeans are more or less the same as the ones for Gaby, but with a few shortenings here and there, taking into account my height and stature.

Next time I make this pattern, I intend to play further with the width at the knees, to try to eliminate the wrinkling at the back. On the other hand, the pair of black jeans I made at the beginning of the year is much wider at the legs and the knees and still crinkles at the back, so maybe the width is not the problem. I wish I knew more about pants construction, but most of the videos and the booklet I have were not of much help for this particular issue.

I have enough pairs of long flared jeans for now, but I want a couple of 7/8 length pairs for the summer, so there will be more pairs of jeans here. Probably 2025 will turn to be the year of the jeans :)

Denim Pinafore

And here are the last two items I made for Gaby this spring - a denim jacket and a denim pinafore I managed to cut from the remnants of the jacket.

 

The pinafore is based heavily on a RTW pinafore in Gaby's wardrobe. The upper part of the pinafore and the pockets I copied directly from the RTW item and for the skirt I used a Burda pattern I have already made once - Burda skirt 6252.

I had a small piece of fabric left after I made the jacket. I could place the main pieces of the pinafore, but  I couldn't cut the pockets in one piece. Still I thought the pinafore would be unthinkable without big pockets, so I made a compromise and cut them out of two pieces and made the connecting lines a feature.

Pattern: Burda 6252, modified based on RTW pinafore

Size: 34

Fabric: denim with elastane 

Time to make: 4 days

I was so short of fabric, that I had to make the inside of the belt out of an old pair of jeans - I really like to use up fabric to the very last piece :)

The pinafore came out looking almost exactly as the original, but if I were to make it again, I would choose a different pattern for the skirt, as this one is rather trapezoid, narrow at the hips and too wide at the hem. I do hope it will fit Gaby, as this blind sewing is a bit of a gamble, especially with close fitting items.

Apple Green Dilgul Top

I am building a small spring wardrobe for Gaby, as I intend to send her a package to Vienna these days. So far I have only shown you the hoodie, and here is one of the blouses. 

I had a nice quality viscose knit in a fresh apple green color and I wanted to make something flow-y and spring-y from it. I wеnt through my Burda blouse patterns and nothing clicked, so I googled images of long sleeve blouses and came upon these tops with interesting pleated plackets.  

I am always in for a challenge, and I decided to try and make that look, starting from a basic long sleeve pattern. For my base I chose a true and tried Burda long sleeve - Burda 6820.

I left the sleeves and the back as they were and modified the front. I cut the front pattern in seven places at 1.7 cm intervals and added 1.5 cm pleats. If I were to make this pattern again, I would reduce the width of the pleats to 1 cm or 1.2 cm and I would raise the neckline by 3 cm and make it a bit more square, as it is in the original. The way I made it, the neckline sits low enough and does not favour unbuttoning, which kind of makes all this elaborate button closure redundant.

In the original the bottom hem is simply roll-hemmed on the overlocker, but to me this kind of finishing looks a bit cheap, so I decided to hem it with a narrow hem with a double needle.

And one more detail - always finish the neck with the neckband first and then add the Henley placket. I made it the other way round and it proved the wrong way, as the finishing of the placket is not that sharp. Lesson learned, I hope :)

Pattern: Burda 6820 (base), Dilgul Pleated Top (inspiration)

Size: 36, heavily modified to #makethatlook

Fabric: viscose knit, 1 m

Time to make: 4 days

Still, I think it is a nice and different long sleeve, the fabric is extremely pleasant to the skin and i hope Gaby will like it and wear it this spring. And it was a fun #makethatlook challenge.

Grey "Page" Hoodie

I made an almost zero cost hoodie for myself :)

After I sewed husband's grey joggers and hoodie, I was left with pretty big remnants of sweatshirt fleece and I began planning something, probably a hoodie for myself. Then I watched the January Live Sewalong on Stitched Up channel and I was smitten by the Page Hoodie Rachel made for herself in no time (she's an absolutely amazing fast seamstress!).

As much as I was tempted by the pattern, alas, that price is incomparable to standard of living in my country, not for a hoodie, anyway. I went through my Burda patterns and found one that was reasonably close - # 103 from Burdastyle 01 / 2017.

I cut the pattern for the hoodie, but at the cutting line for the blouse (#102), which uses the same line drawings and rounded the hem. I also reduced significantly the width of the parts of the hoodie, as they were designed for a rather oversized garment, and I wanted mine only moderately wide.

For the lining of the hood I selected several large remnants of wine ITY from a blouse I made for myself in 2020, I think the wine color goes perfectly with the dark grey. The stripes on the sleeves were a feature out of necessity - I didn't have enough long pieces of fabric for the sleeves, so I had to make the sleeves out of two pieces each, so one of the stripes covers the connecting seams and the other is for balance.

Once I had put stripes on the sleeves, it occurred to me to add stripes to the hem too. I loved the view of the Page hoodie Rachel made - with the string at the bottom instead of a ribbed hem and I decided to make mine like hers. However, to reduce the bulk and ensure nice curving, I cut a separate mirror piece of the hem, which is attached to the bottom of the body and contains the string.

Pattern: Burda #103 01/2017

Size: 36, modified

Fabric: sweatshirt fleece, ITY lining

Time to make: one week

 

 

I tried a new technique on this hoodie - I covered the seam between the hood and the body with a cotton band (the same I am also using as a string) and it came out really well, giving it a nice professional finish.

 

All in all, I am happy with my new make, it is warm and practical and will get a lot of wear this winter. On to my next project :)

Make That Look: Zara Boat neck Top

My latest make for Gaby - an imitation of a Zara boat neck top we both have. I bought a piece of T-shirt cotton knit with navy blue and white stripes and of course the logical pattern for it was a boat neck top. I found plenty of useful tips on youtube on how to turn a crew neck pattern into a boat neck top, so i started with my Shkatulka tee pattern, modified the neckline and extended the sleeves to 3/4 length.

In order to match the stripes and make the shirt perfectly symmetrical, I cut two pieces of each front and back paper pattern, glued them together and drafted and cut the pattern pieces flat in a single layer. Even working in this manner I had to fix and align each individual stripe. From the constant movement of the fabric it was evident that if I had opted to cut the T-shirt pieces on the fold, as one usually does, the pattern placement would have been a disaster. It did take a lot of time to cut the pattern, but it was totally worth it!

The boat neck  - I watched half a dozen videos on finishing the boat neck and neither provided useful tips for the kind of finishing I was looking for - fully covered neckline and shoulders. So I had to figure it out myself. First I cut a band of navy blue cotton jersey and finished the neckline of the back. Then I stitched a longer band of the same jersey to the neckline and the shoulders of the front. Then I attached the shoulders of the back to the front. Then I folded the band to cover the front neckline and both shoulders. Finally I stitched flat the covered shoulders to the back. Et voilà - a perfect covered boat neck and shoulders!

And here's my own label, discretely attached to the back of the T-shirt.

Stripe-matching - that's another story :) I sewed all the side seams on the overlocker, carefully pinning together every other dark stripe, to ensure as accurate matching as possible. 

Pattern: Boat Neck Top, modified Shkatulka top

Size: 42, reduced to 40 (equivalent to EU 34, xs)

Fabric: 100% cotton knit

Thread: polyester, white and navy blue

Time to make: 2 days

The hems are finished first on the overlocker and then folded, ironed and hemmed on the sewing machine with white thread and double needle.

The view of the back

Make That Look: Terranova Crop Top

In my favourite fabrics shop downtown I came upon a 50 cm remnant of this sweet viscose knit and I snatched it for a crop top for Gaby. This summer she's been wearing a RTW crop top by Terranova and I knew I could make her a similar one.

On a different note, RTW t-shirts now during the sales at the end of summer are so cheap, that to a non-sewist all that money I've spent into buying sewing machines, fabric, threads and needles (and I'm expecting my own labels to arrive any time soon) seem totally pointless. But it's never been about saving money and it's not even about higher quality, though I try, it's about the love for creating, that's all.

To recreate the pattern, I used as a basis a T-shirt pattern by Shkatulka, which I cropped, extended and further modified to match the original crop top. I even made a mock sample out of a white promotional T-shirt I was about to turn in for recycling - to my surprise it turned out quite nice, Gaby liked it and might wear it at home.

The main seams are sewn on the overlocker, the back of the neck is covered with a band from the same fabric (youtube tutorial here), I cleaned the hem edges on the overlocker and then sewed them on the Elna with twin needle. NB! Always check the settings of the machine when using twin needle - I had forgotten mine on zigzag stitch and of course, I broke my only stretch twin needle :(, so I had to hem the blouse with the twin needle for wovens, using paper straps to make it work on my knit fabric.

After I finished the crop top, I had a small piece of the fabric left, so I made a pair of matching undies. The pattern I used is again one from Shkatulka I've sewn already six times and I know it's a good pattern, though I'm still fiddling with the fit, trying to perfect it.

All in all, pretty happy with this set!

Make That Look: Reserve Blouse

 

This is the second blouse I sewed out of my big piece of bamboo knit - a smock top, imitation of a RTW Reserve blouse of Gaby's. For the basis of my pattern I used the Easy Smock Top by lovesewingmag.co.uk, a free pattern I've made before. As the pattern is designed for woven and I was using knits, and also as i know the pattern runs rather wide, I reduced the width of the front and the back by 4 cm each and the width of the sleeves by 5 cm each. Then I elongated the sleeves and drafted the sleeve flounces, which are 3/4 circles.

I sewed all the basic seams on the overlocker and for the flounces I applied the rolled hem function - they came out perfect!

 

I'm also wearing my latest hand-made necklace, designed out of wooden balls and rings on a string with an adjustable length. I was so enthused by the idea, that I made two different versions of these and I hope to be able to photograph the second one soon.

The hem of the Reserve blouse, which was the inspiration for this piece, is also made with a rolled hem, but I prefer the more structured hem with the twin needle. The neckline is also hemmed on the straight machine with two narrow zigzag seams at 1 cm distance and the elastic is inserted in the channel between the zigzag seams.

Pattern: Easy Smock Top, modified

Size: 8-10, heavily reduced

Fabric: bamboo knit

Thread: polyester

Time to make: 2 days